Michael Gearon

Interactive Applications using Arduino and Raspberry Pi

Michael Gearon

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The use of electronics to produce inexpensive applications has been increasing in the past couple of years, with Raspberry Pi selling 2 million of it’s computers in October 2013. As well as Raspberry Pi there is also Arduino which I occasionally tinker with. The one reason why electronics have become successful is the price for example Raspberry Pi sells for £24.87 and Arduino at £22.19 (on Amazon) making it affordable for the majority of enthusiasts.

Raspberry-pi

Recently, I tweeted about an inspiring use of ultra sonic sensors to detect when a train arrives at the platform which would then cause the models hair to appear as if it’s being affected by the trains arrival.

As well as this, there are probably thousands of other videos demonstrating the use of electronics, but here’s a few that stood out:

There is a clear demand for electronics that people can tinker with to produce an array of things for example turning on your lights, watering the plants, alarms, even filling up your bathtub from your phone.

As well as people who may have experience with using electronics and coding, young people are also producing programmes, games and other applications. For example, in the BBC news a person aged 14 was able to design games and write her own software:

Amy Mather’s first taste of coding was at a science festival, when she was 11.

Now 14, she designs games, writes her own software and was named the European Digital Girl of the Year in 2013.

She even speaks at industry events, to encourage other children to give it a try.

Teenage computer coders on the rise by the BBC

Puts me to shame in a way… but lets not dwell on that…

If you liked this post feel free to comment or share. Hopefully I will post some examples of the work I’ve been up to soon. Thanks for reading!

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Michael Gearon

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Michael Gearon

Senior Interaction Designer and Co-Author to Tiny CSS Projects